Christmas Recording Progress

If you're a regular reader of this blog you already know that I've been working on a cover of a Christmas song. I'm pleased to say that it has been coming along well and I've been experimenting with some new things. But I have now arrived at the dreaded 'recording the drums' portion of the song. After initially being convinced that I would go with my trusty Yamaha synth's drum sounds, I have now decided that I need to play a real drum set for this song. The hard part will be, as always, getting a good snare drum sound.

I was experimenting a bit with the snare drum this evening and doing some test recordings with it. I achieved a very nice sound--still not perfect but it might just be the best sound I have ever recorded. What did it for me was three key things:

1. Tightening the top and bottom heads of the drum
2. Placing a mic near & just above the drum (and away from the hi hat)
3. Turning down the input recording level.

Tightening the heads gave me a higher pitched sound and one that cut through the mix with all the other instruments. The mic near the snare gives it extra volume and lets you hear its nuances from up close. Additionally, with the mic that close I don't have to hit the drum all that hard. Also, the mic is away from the hi hat which means it does not pick up all that hi hat noise and ended up giving me a very balanced sound. Finally, turning down the record input level got rid of the distorted drum sound that unfortunately has plagued many of my other recordings. It pays to try different things out! If it weren't so late in the evening when I was doing all this I would have recorded the whole drum set track tonight.

But as I mentioned it wasn't completely perfect. On the recording I was hearing a lot of the snare drum's overtones. I will try recording again with a drum ring on the head. But the problem with rings is that they tend to completely deaden the drum sound. I may try some other things if the desired sound is not achieved.

So when I do record the drum set part my plan is to use that one mic on the snare; an overhead to capture the toms & cymbals; and 2 for the kick drum, one on each end. I used to in the past mic the toms individually but I have found that the single overhead picks them up very well and I have even received  professional praise on their recorded sound using that technique. That's good enough for me. Ideally, if I had the space and additional mic stands I would go with mic'ing each tom and running each one through a separate channel of a mixer. But you make do with what you have because it beats getting into unnecessary debt.

The song I'm working on is "We Three Kings." This is a great, minor-key, public domain Christmas song. It's in 3/8 time and originally I was going to record it that way. But I had some other ideas for this song and I changed it to 4/4. Obviously I have not heard every version of this song ever recorded, but I believe I have come up with a unique arrangement and interpretation. I was going for a late 60's/early 70's sound on this, and in particular a vintage R&B feel. It is an instrumental with a minimoog voice taking the lead melody. This is the very first recording of mine to feature a cello. And I added a 4 piece horn section because, hey, it won't sound like some vintage, funky R&B without horns! I recorded trumpet, trombone, tenor sax & baritone sax. This is not the first time I have experimented with horns on a recording of mine. You might remember some horn action on my song "The Rain." Now, mind you, I do not have a cello or all those different horns nor would I be able to play them well enough at this time. But my Yamaha synth opens up worlds of sound for me. And these sounds are realistic-enough that I can use them and pass them off as the real deal on recordings. I will surely be using horn sounds a lot more in my future songs.

I'm really excited about finishing the recording process for this song. There are still some things to tweak and plenty of tracks to bounce in order to free up space. I anticipate completing this song in its entirety and releasing it during the coming weekend. At that time I will submit it to ChristmasSongsRadio.com where it will be in rotation with my three other holiday recordings. I will also send it to "The Basement Tapes with Nick & Bootsy."

Before I close out this post I want to give you an idea of the snare drum sound I'm looking to get for this recording. Such a great sound and cuts clearly through the mix. And there appears to be only an overhead mic. I'm pretty confident there are no other mics on those drums as that was back in the day when drum sets were not given mic'ing priority. By the way, this is also a great song by a great performer: